December 24, 2025: Huntington Ingalls Industries/HII is the largest naval shipbuilder in the country. Currently it is implementing new manufacturing methods to build everything except carriers and submarines, faster and cheaper. The new, for American warship builders, technique is distributed shipbuilding. Portions of a warship hull and superstructure are built by different firms all over the country. These components are then moved to a shipyard for final assembly. Most of the ships currently using this process are Burke class destroyers.

The biggest problem with this approach is finding enough qualified workers. The Covid19 outbreak five years ago accelerated the retirement of the most qualified workers. The naval shipbuilding industry needs another 5,000 workers over the next few years. What might help is the growing number of young men who consider most college programs worthless. Unless you are studying STEM/Science, Technology, Electronics Math subjects, college isn’t worth the tuition debt you have to eventually pay back. Many young men and women join the military to learn skills that can get them a job after their service is completed. Labor unions and shipbuilders have apprentice programs, but that still doesn’t fill all the open positions created by the recent retirements. HII began trials on this new system last year with new destroyers Thad Cochran/DDG-135, USS John F. Lehman/DDG-137 and USS Telesforo Trinidad\DDG-139.

The navy has other experiences with shipbuilding. The first of the new U.S. Navy Constellation-class frigates has been under construction for a year and is expected to enter service in 2027. These ships are being built in the United States by the Italian firm Fincantieri. The main reason for this is because the Italians have improved how prefabricated ships are produced. Constellations are based on European FREMM designs which make use of many prefabricated sections of the ships to speed construction at less cost. The United States used this during both World Wars to produce thousands of merchant ships and small warships. Currently these techniques are used to speed the production of nuclear submarines. The Europeans and Americans are trying to keep up with South Korea and China, who pioneered many of these techniques. China has the largest ship manufacturing operation in the world. The United States has the smallest, which is why European firm Fincantieri opened a shipyard in the United States to produce th

The U.S. Navy has other problems as well. It is no longer able to maintain or repair its ships. In an earlier economy move, all the navy ship repair and maintenance facilities were sold off. The worst aspect of this was the loss of skilled shipyard workers. The older ones were retiring and the navy did little to recruit and train replacements. Now, as the United States strives to expand its navy and repair and upgrade current ships, it finds that the resources are lacking. There are no easy solutions. Any fix will take time and a growing chunk of the annual navy budget. The navy also has to get rid of some bad habits. These include micromanaging ship construction and crippling that effort with endless changes, suggestions and general interference.

The current situation is that the U.S. Navy is unable to build enough new ships to replace the fleet it currently has and can’t maintain the ships it does have, let alone battle damage to those ships in war. The navy has nearly 500 ships in active service as well as the reserve fleet. The principal vessels are the combat ships, which include 11 aircraft carriers, nine Amphibious Assault Ships for transporting and landing marine battalions, ten LPD Amphibious Dock Landing Ships to supply amphibious operations, fifty SSNs/Nuclear attack submarines, fourteen SSBNs/Ballistic missile-carrying nuclear submarines, four SSGMs/SSBNs converted to carry over a hundred cruise missiles each, one frigate, 13 cruisers, 75 destroyers and about fifty support ships of various types.

There are many solutions. These include American Pacific allies like South Korea and Japan sharing their shipyard facilities and workforce to upgrade USN ship maintenance and upgrade efforts. These two nations have fleets of ships like the USN, and yard workers trained to do work on American ships. The US ships are needed by these countries to confront the growing Chinese naval threat. Our problem is their problem, but a long range solution is something the Americans own.

Similar reform efforts over the last few decades failed because navy officials interfered with construction using endless change requests and modifications of work orders. If this form of malpractice is not eliminated, reforms will fail. It is a navy problem that only navy leaders and managers can fix. Victory is not assured, and results will be visible over the next few years.